The present invention relates to ice pops. In particular, the present invention relates to a new formulation for a low calorie ice pop.
Ice pops have been around for a long time. The smooth texture of an ice pop is attributed to the high solids content of the product. Most of the solids in these pops is from added sugar, which can range from 15 to over 20 percent of the product.
Recently there has been a lot of activity in the frozen novelty business with the addition of "fruit and juice" bars in the marketplace. To produce good quality "fruit and juice" bars, it is also important to control the solids content, particularly the solids-to-liquids ratio. Fruit bar formulations rely on fruit pulp, natural fruit sugars, and added sugar to supply the solids. The liquid fraction is derived from fruit juices adjusted with added water.
Low calorie or "lite" food products have also gained in the popularity over the last few years. Thus, there have been attempts to create "lite" ice pops. However, to lower the calories of the pops requires the removal or replacement of most of the solid material in the pop, i.e., sugar, fruit pulp, etc. Lowering the solid content results in hard and less smooth ice pops.
One attempt to make a type of "lite" ice pop was with a product known as "Aspen Lite." This product was sweetened with saccharin and texturized with Solka-Floc.RTM. powdered cellulose grade BW-300 FCC. BW-300 has an average particle size of 22 microns. This resulted in a grainy pop that had a "hard" bite. This pop was not successful.
Still later, other formulations were introduced which contained NutraSweet.RTM. brand of aspartame as their sweetener, such as Crystal Lightp.TM. from General Foods Corporation and lite Popsicle.RTM. brand ice pop. These ice pop formulations did not use a dietary fiber, such as cellulose, which has no caloric content, and thus these formulations still contained a significant number of calories.